Sergei Biriuzov

We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy.

Sergei Semenovich Biriuzov (August 21, 1904 – October 19, 1964) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union and Chief of the General Staff. On March 11, 1955, Biriuzov was given the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Between April 1955 and April 1962, Biriuzov was the Commander in Chief of the National Air Defense Force. After this, he was made Commander in Chief of the Strategic Missile Force, and in 1963, he was made the Chief of the General Staff. On October 19, 1964, Biriuzov was killed in a plane crash on the mount Avala near Belgrade. The urn containing his ashes is buried in the Kremlin.

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The Germans also attempted to muddle the issue. They composed fables and wrote on their lists that the Soviet generals had voluntarily deserted to the enemy side. None of us believed this. We knew well that such distinguished generals as Khomenko and Bobkov would not surrender alive to the enemy.

We ceased to deal seriously with mobile combat. We relegated to oblivion the fundamentals of combat-in-depth tactics and of combined arms maneuvers which had been widespread before the Finnish campaign.

The storming of the Mannerheim Line was regarded as a model of operational and tactical art. Troops were taught to overcome the enemy's protracted defense by a gradual accumulation of forces and a patient "gnawing through" of breaches in the enemy's fortifications in accordance with all the rules of engineering science. Insufficient attention was paid to questions of co-operation among different branches and services of the armed forces under rapidly changing conditions. We had to retrain ourselves under enemy fire, paying a high price for the experience and knowledge without which we could not beat Hitler's army.

Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess.